Monday, April 24, 2017

Matt's Favorite Summer Albums: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold as Love (1967)



In artistic depictions of Hindu Gods and Goddesses, their power is often conveyed through multiplication of arms, legs, and heads.  Jimi Hendrix's choice of this style for the cover art of Axis: Bold as Love made his sophomore record a bold statement before it even hit the turntable.  Nestled squarely between the noisy blues assault of Are You Experienced and the distant psychedelic horizons of Electric Ladyland, Axis: Bold as Love saw Hendrix assert himself as the world's all-powerful leader into uncharted musical territory.  Hendrix was so far ahead of the game that his legend only continues to grow with time.  During his run in the mid-60s he couldn't have been seen as anything less than an otherworldly force, seemingly boundless in capability.  We’re going back almost 50 years for this one, but it’s an album that still sounds about 50,000 years ahead of its time.

Jimi’s R&B influences are most apparent here, with songs such as Up From the Skies, You Got Me Floatin’, and Little Miss Lover featuring delicate play of dynamics at work with fun, bouncy rhythms and swaggering vocals beneath the roaring feedback and in-your-face live production. This juxtaposition is especially potent on Wait Until Tomorrow: possibly the most perfect pop song Hendrix ever wrote without sacrificing any of his freewheeling nature.



The main event though is of course the guitar work, with Hendrix laying down some of his most aggressive studio playing. Spanish Castle Magic is a bolt of unbridled electric energy, and If 6 Was 9 smolders and snarls like a cornered dog. Meanwhile Little Wing reigns immortal with his most emotive and dynamic soloing (recorded using a spinning "leslie" speaker cabinet), and Castles Made of Sand uses a blues structure to anchor groundbreaking exploration in backwards tape echo and looping effects. It all comes to an explosive breaking point during the passionate title track. Bold as Love is a workout of muscular guitar and chest-thumping chorus, coming to a brief false-ending. At that point, with a phased out drum fill, Bold as Love transcends time and space via incendiary lead guitar melodies that give way to a soaring sea of effects and distortion, ending the album as a crashing wave.

It is becoming increasingly true that no matter what happens in the music world, Jimi Hendrix will always sound fresh and new. It is what made him so groundbreaking at the time, and the reason why his music still resonates today. His crest-of-the-wave sound and approach seems like it hit a natural stride with this album, giving it a sense of excitement and fun throughout- perfect for summer.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Matts Favorite Summer Albums: Tame Impala - Currents (2015)

[Just about five years ago I posted My Top Ten Summer Albums. Those albums still remain in constant rotation during the warm months, but I have been looking forward to doing a followup article for some time. A handful of albums have since jumped out at me enough to write about, so I've decided it's time for part two. There are less entries in this batch, and the writeups turned out to be longer, so it seemed appropriate to roll them out one at a time. Anyway, off we go...]






For his followup to 2012’s guitar-heavy masterpiece Lonerism, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker resolved to incorporate more R&B influences into his brand of psychedelia in pursuit of a more danceable, pop-oriented sound.  Along the way he transcended the thematic loneliness and isolation of Lonerism and its predecessor Innerspeaker to settle into a groove within the greater flow of life.  I’m not well-versed enough on Parker’s personal life to call Currents a breakup album, but in a sense it certainly plays like one. Rather than dwelling on loss, it focuses on the reclamation of oneself.   Parker steps back from the puzzle and gains a view of the picture it is forming.  Under the taking of such a perfectionist and music obsessive this all leads to a nearly perfect, universally enjoyable, defining work.


As they’ve always done, Tame Impala evokes the spirit of 1960's psychedelic rock in such an authentic and confident manner that it never sounds nostalgic or derivative.  Currents ramps up the modernism, giving the overall sound the timeless nature of a dream.  Basslines thump and throb, guitars mesh with synthesizers to alternate between soaring leads and gritty low grooves, and processed vocals become an ethereal instrument of their own. 





Parker works all of this push-and-pull into his unique mold of impeccable songcraft.  In his trademarked falsetto croon he ruminates on personal change and transcendence.  Album opener Let it Happen immediately evokes the background of the album’s cover, a network of pathways representing the world’s infinite perpetuation and the constant sensory barrage of life ("it's always around me, all this noise...").  We all have the tendency to tune it out, either for the purpose of fighting against it in pursuit of one's one end, or for letting it carry us away in apathy.  As it turns out, life lies within that flow, and the only solution is to jump in.  Upon doing so one comes the realization that they were "ready all along".  Yes I’m Changing emphasizes the other half of the cover art: the splashes of color and rippling aftereffects created by each individual’s actions and perspective.  By accepting that "life is moving" he is able to stop hiding and manifest "another version of (him)self".  With these two songs, and throughout the album as a whole, Parker presents the universe as an unstoppable force while recognizing that same power in himself. By virtue of simply living as part of the universe, he holds all of its power, able through his decisions and actions to alter its very fabric beyond any possible comprehension – simultaneously likewise for every individual in any given moment: "There's a world out there and it's calling my name/and it's calling your's too".  On Eventually, Parker seems to reach a sublime contentment in this realization of infinite eternity, even in the face of the toughest decisions. 




Currents is primarily an album about coming into one’s own via surrender to the bigger picture and the present moment.  True to this theme, Parker’s vocals surface opportunistically, before giving way to infectious beats and overwhelming waves of sound.  The start/stop rhythms are reminiscent of both vintage R&B and modern electronic/dance music, around which otherworldly guitars swirl with the freedom of not having to carry the track.  Parker has an uncanny knack for managing noise and the space between.  On Currents they are two sides of the same coin, rising to perfect crescendos at the most organic moments. 


Currents greatest strength is the timeless ease of its experience.  Through its free-flowing melodicism it becomes a soundtrack to the world unfolding around oneself.  Every part is integral, giving the overall product a profound sense of oneness. All of life is right here, and there is nothing to do but live it.   In that, Currents becomes an encapsulation of summer itself.


Saturday, April 1, 2017

Mindfulness Themes in Brian Fallon's "Painkillers"



     This album came out during a pretty weird time in my life, and I ruined it for myself a bit by listening to it constantly for several weeks... I didn’t know it then, but I think part of the reason it had such an impact on me was because it introduced many ideas I would learn about later through mindfulness.
     For Brian Fallon, Painkillers came on the heels of not only the breakup of his band The Gaslight Anthem, but also the divorce of his wife of ten years. Given this context, Fallon sounds remarkably content and at-peace on the record. I think he accomplishes this by maintaining a perspective just outside himself for much of the album. He sings past-tense love songs of loss, regret, and mistakes like he’s flipping through old photo albums. On Nobody Wins he likens a past relationship to a “past life”. While allowing nostalgia to surface, Fallon remains keenly aware that it is a feeling for his recollection of the time. It exists entirely as a jumble of memories, an experience entirely of his own mind’s creation. And just like that, he lets it go ("If I never see you again/You can blame it on the wind"). Throughout the album he makes no judgement of himself or his circumstances, only an acceptance of the perpetual ebb and flow of life. On earlier Gaslight records he may have clung desperately to burning bridges or let himself bleed out in grief. Instead he sits back, aware of his scars but forgetting about them under the warmth of the present moment.
     Conveyed lyrically, this all carries the risk of coming off as amateurish zen-posturing. Thankfully, in the hands of a singer-songwriter as relatable and genuine as Brian Fallon it never feels less than authentic. This is an album about learning to smile at the world in the face of vulnerability and uncertainty. That’s all mindfulness really is in the first place.
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